To put into context<p>Gasoline cars emissions = 3e9 lbs = 1360777110 metric tons<p>This implies USA per capita emissions from cars = 4 metric tons.<p>Current total USA per capita emissions is 14.86 tons. So reducing the car emissions by 75% (by switching to EV) will take total per capita emissions down to 11.8 tons.<p>I believe the acceptable level of per capita emissions for the 1.5C target is 2.3 tons [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequality-in-2030-per-capita-consumption-emissions-and-the-15c-goal-621305/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-inequalit...</a>
Electric cars do emit particulate matter from their tires, a greater amount than ICE vehicles do because they’re heavier. The PM is also a microplasic (rubber). But obviously near zero COx/NOx/SOx.<p>Imagine if climate change was a myth, and the only thing we got from all this effort was air that was safe to breathe. Wouldn’t that still be worth it?
Is 24mpg really correct? I'm in Europe driving a small hatchback and I'd typically get around 45-50mpg (UK, I know American mpg is lower, but it wouldn't be halving the figure!).<p>Depending on how I drive, that can be up to about 60mpg, which is where the car definitely tops out.<p>24mpg to me seems like madness!
Any calculation on cars that does not factor in commercial trucks is flawed. Over the past two decades, we have seen an enormous increase in commercial freight traffic. The last numbers I remember from [1] estimated that cars account for 40% of tailpipe emissions, whereas trucks account for ~60%, and this was estimate from before the pandemic. I am certain the ratio is more skewed in favour of trucks now.<p>To the point: 73% of what exactly? 80% of total emissions? 40%? 10%? Given the externalities, it may mean the difference between worthwhile or irrelevant.<p>[1] Sustainable Energy: Without The Hot Air: <a href="https://www.withouthotair.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.withouthotair.com/</a>
As a thought experiment? We will have polluted the Earth from all the mining and haphazard disposal processes that are common where these rare earths are, and will have done little to nothing about over all GHG release as policy in places like California have de-incentivized residential solar to prop up the profits of the utilities and most charging will likely be done using carbon based sources from an archaic grid.<p>Believe me when i say this, I worked for VW during diesel-gate and thought the solution was EV being embraced by the largest auto manufacturer: VAG. But the reality it's far more complex than that: we have to enforce as much WFH as possible, in conjunction with realizing we must have a conglomerate of energy sources including fossil fuels, but also see that what we have been doing is entirely unsustainable and not even desirable in terms of large scale transportation and logistics.<p>it doesn't even fit the mould since younger millennials and Gen Z do not want nor can they afford cars; so who is going to buy these things after it's main demographic has been exhausted?<p>I'll save you a click:<p><i>Conclusion<p>I predict that if all gasoline vehicles were replaced by EVs we would see total C02 produced drop from 3 trillion lbs per year to 810.1 billion lbs per year, a 73.0% decrease. Comparing this result using data from [8] we see a 77.9% decrease predicted. We consider this validation for such a simplistic, high level approximation with the goal of being understandable to people outside of academia. We performed a separate calculation using 24.2 mpg for the fuel economy for gas powered vehicles in the U.S. and calculated the total annual emission to be 3.3 trillion lbs. This value lands in between the previous two methods of calculating total annual gas emissions.<p>The predicted decrease in emissions is compelling but it is still important to expand on these of calculations to include more environmental effects that distinguish the impact of these two types of vehicles. The type of impact is most likely not completely characterized by carbon emissions alone </i>
Setting aside the mid-2000s-programming-interview-riddle blog post, is CO2 even the problem wrt automotive air pollution?:
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyres-produce-more-particle-pollution-than-exhausts-tests-show" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...</a>
BTW, thanks for all the feedback! I am not some climate scientist or anything, I've just wondered about this question and started putting down notes and decided to make a little capsule about it. It has actually evolved a lot already, so certainly feedback from this post will definitely get incorporated.
99 comments and only 22 points? I also noticed this post drop from the front page #18 to somewhere like 500 in an instant. I guess some mod decided to tank this post. Why?
Does the OPs math check out?<p>> 282,000,000 vehicles * 14,000 miles/(year vehicle) * 241.4 Wh/mile * 0.85 lbs C02/kWh = 810.1 billion lbs of C02/year<p>Aren’t Wh and kWh being conflated in this calculation?
Diesel cars?
Etanol cars (and the sugar price would skyrocket)<p>Some ugly accidents with batteries catching fire?<p>Prices would increase as more batteries are needed (so, increasing the price of some goods)?<p>Solar power generation would increase and become widespread, and prices would decrease as competition would become higher?
This is a typical green propaganda dumbass calculation .<p>You assume that people drive BEV as often and as far as they drive ICE. They don't.<p>You assume people always charge BEV from the grid. People can also use solar panels.<p>You assume gasoline forever has to be fossil. It does not need to be.<p>You forget the carbon footprint of manufacturing of either kind of cars.<p>You assume all people can afford buying new cars. They don't.<p>You assume there will be as big second hand market for BEV and it is now for ICE. It won't be, because of the battery degradation.<p>You assume that current grid can handle simultaneous loading of all BEV. It can't, and you don't include the carbon footprint of grid extension and increase of the generation power in your calculation.<p>And last but now least, a typical green propaganda trick, you are only calculating one variable and ignoring negative effects in another variables:
- people waste more time waiting for charging
- people forced to switch to inferious means of transportation
- people reducing their leisure travels
- a two-class mobility with the lower class of poor people living in apartments without own charging possibility who cannot afford a BEV or are forced spending hours per day charging at public stations, and the higher class of home owners with solar panels, charging their cars for free
- higher prices for taxi, delivery services (and therefore all retail prices), facility management, mobile nurses, construction worker and other people who drive more miles per day as one over-night charge can give.
- special service vehicles like firefighting trucks, police cars, military vehicles, super-heavy trucks etc. cannot use fragile battery energy only, and need to use gasoline, which becomes very expensive and hard to get, if 99% of other cars are BEV and so all gas stations are closed.<p>So you should either stop publishing shit or invest a lot more time in your calculation.